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.\" @(#)sysconf.3 8.3 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
.\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/gen/sysconf.3,v 1.25 2007/01/09 00:27:55 imp Exp $
.\"
.Dd December 14, 2006
.Dt SYSCONF 3
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm sysconf
.Nd get configurable system variables
.Sh LIBRARY
.Lb libc
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In unistd.h
.Ft long
.Fn sysconf "int name"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
This interface is defined by
.St -p1003.1-88 .
A far more complete interface is available using
.Xr sysctl 3 .
.Pp
The
.Fn sysconf
function provides a method for applications to determine the current
value of a configurable system limit or option variable.
The
.Fa name
argument specifies the system variable to be queried.
Symbolic constants for each name value are found in the include file
.In unistd.h .
Shell programmers who need access to these parameters should use the
.Xr getconf 1
utility.
.Pp
The available values are as follows:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width 6n
.Pp
.It Li _SC_ARG_MAX
The maximum bytes of argument to
.Xr execve 2 .
.It Li _SC_CHILD_MAX
The maximum number of simultaneous processes per user id.
.It Li _SC_CLK_TCK
The frequency of the statistics clock in ticks per second.
.It Li _SC_IOV_MAX
The maximum number of elements in the I/O vector used by
.Xr readv 2 ,
.Xr writev 2 ,
.Xr recvmsg 2 ,
and
.Xr sendmsg 2 .
.It Li _SC_NGROUPS_MAX
The maximum number of supplemental groups.
.It Li _SC_NPROCESSORS_CONF
The number of processors configured.
.It Li _SC_NPROCESSORS_ONLN
The number of processors currently online.
.It Li _SC_OPEN_MAX
The maximum number of open files per user id.
.It Li _SC_PAGESIZE
The size of a system page in bytes.
.It Li _SC_STREAM_MAX
The minimum maximum number of streams that a process may have open
at any one time.
.It Li _SC_TZNAME_MAX
The minimum maximum number of types supported for the name of a
timezone.
.It Li _SC_JOB_CONTROL
Return 1 if job control is available on this system, otherwise \-1.
.It Li _SC_SAVED_IDS
Returns 1 if saved set-group and saved set-user ID is available,
otherwise \-1.
.It Li _SC_VERSION
The version of
.St -p1003.1
with which the system
attempts to comply.
.It Li _SC_BC_BASE_MAX
The maximum ibase/obase values in the
.Xr bc 1
utility.
.It Li _SC_BC_DIM_MAX
The maximum array size in the
.Xr bc 1
utility.
.It Li _SC_BC_SCALE_MAX
The maximum scale value in the
.Xr bc 1
utility.
.It Li _SC_BC_STRING_MAX
The maximum string length in the
.Xr bc 1
utility.
.It Li _SC_COLL_WEIGHTS_MAX
The maximum number of weights that can be assigned to any entry of
the LC_COLLATE order keyword in the locale definition file.
.It Li _SC_EXPR_NEST_MAX
The maximum number of expressions that can be nested within
parenthesis by the
.Xr expr 1
utility.
.It Li _SC_LINE_MAX
The maximum length in bytes of a text-processing utility's input
line.
.It Li _SC_RE_DUP_MAX
The maximum number of repeated occurrences of a regular expression
permitted when using interval notation.
.It Li _SC_2_VERSION
The version of
.St -p1003.2
with which the system attempts to comply.
.It Li _SC_2_C_BIND
Return 1 if the system's C-language development facilities support the
C-Language Bindings Option, otherwise \-1.
.It Li _SC_2_C_DEV
Return 1 if the system supports the C-Language Development Utilities Option,
otherwise \-1.
.It Li _SC_2_CHAR_TERM
Return 1 if the system supports at least one terminal type capable of
all operations described in
.St -p1003.2 ,
otherwise \-1.
.It Li _SC_2_FORT_DEV
Return 1 if the system supports the FORTRAN Development Utilities Option,
otherwise \-1.
.It Li _SC_2_FORT_RUN
Return 1 if the system supports the FORTRAN Runtime Utilities Option,
otherwise \-1.
.It Li _SC_2_LOCALEDEF
Return 1 if the system supports the creation of locales, otherwise \-1.
.It Li _SC_2_SW_DEV
Return 1 if the system supports the Software Development Utilities Option,
otherwise \-1.
.It Li _SC_2_UPE
Return 1 if the system supports the User Portability Utilities Option,
otherwise \-1.
.El
.Pp
These values also exist, but may not be standard:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width 6n
.Pp
.It Li _SC_PHYS_PAGES
The number of pages of physical memory.
Note that it is possible that the product of this value and the value of
.Li _SC_PAGESIZE
will overflow a
.Vt long
in some configurations on a 32bit machine.
.El
.Sh RETURN VALUES
If the call to
.Fn sysconf
is not successful, \-1 is returned and
.Va errno
is set appropriately.
Otherwise, if the variable is associated with functionality that is not
supported, \-1 is returned and
.Va errno
is not modified.
Otherwise, the current variable value is returned.
.Sh ERRORS
The
.Fn sysconf
function may fail and set
.Va errno
for any of the errors specified for the library function
.Xr sysctl 3 .
In addition, the following error may be reported:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er EINVAL
The value of the
.Fa name
argument is invalid.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr getconf 1 ,
.Xr pathconf 2 ,
.Xr confstr 3 ,
.Xr sysctl 3
.Sh STANDARDS
Except for the fact that values returned by
.Fn sysconf
may change over the lifetime of the calling process,
this function conforms to
.St -p1003.1-88 .
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Fn sysconf
function first appeared in
.Bx 4.4 .
.Sh BUGS
The value for _SC_STREAM_MAX is a minimum maximum, and required to be
the same as ANSI C's FOPEN_MAX, so the returned value is a ridiculously
small and misleading number.